648 
WHY 
’Tis a noble general's prudent part. 
To cherish valour, and reward desert; 
Let him be daub’d with lace, live high, and whore’. 
Sometimes be lousy; but be never poor. Dry den. 
WHO'REDOM, s. Fornication.—Some let go whore~ 
dom as an indifferent matter, which yet strive for an holy- 
day, as for their life. Bp. Hall. 
WHOREMASTER, or Who'remonger, s. One who 
keeps whores, or converses with a fornicatress.—What is a 
whoremaster, fool ?—a fool in good clothes and something 
like thee. Shakspeare. —Art thou fully persuaded that no 
whoremonger nor adulterer shall have any inheritance in the 
kingdom of God ? and dost thou continue to practise these 
vices ? Tillotson. 
WHORESON, s. A bastard. It is generally used in a 
ludicrous dislike.— Whoreson , mad compound of majesty, 
welcome. Shakspeare. 
WHORISH, adj. Unchaste; incontinent.—By means 
of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread. 
Prov. 
WHO'RTSHLY, adv. Harlot like- 
WHORISHNESS, s. Character of a whore.—I would 
fayne know how they could be chaste, brought up in who - 
ryshness. Bale. 
WHORLTON, a township of England, in Durham ; 4| 
miles south-east of Barnard Castle.—2. A township in the 
North Riding of Yorkshire; 5 miles south-west of Stokesley. 
Population 510. 
WHORLTON, East and West, adjoining hamlets of 
England, in Northumberland, near the Piets’Wall; 5 miles 
north-west of New’castle-upon-Tyne. 
WHORTLEBERRY, s. [heoptbepian, Saxon; tills 
ideea.] Bilberry. A plant. Miller. 
WHOSE, 5. Genitive of who. 
Though I could 
With barefac’d power sweep him from my sight, 
And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not; 
For certain friends that are both his and mine. 
Whose loves I may not drop. Shakspeare. 
Genitive of which. 
Those darts whose points make Gods adore 
His might, and deprecate his power. Prior. 
WHO'SO, or Whosoe'ver, pronoun. Any without re¬ 
striction. Whoso is out of use.— Whoso is out of hope to at- 
ain to another’s virtue, will seek to come at even hand, by 
depressing another’s fortune. Bacon. —'Let there be persons 
licensed to lend upon usury; let the rate be somewhat more 
easy for the merchant than that he formerly payed; for all 
borrowers shall have some ease, be he merchant or whosoever. 
Bacon. 
To WHUR, v. n. To pronounce the letter r with too 
much force. Did. 
WHURT, s. A whortleberry ; a bilberry.—For fruits, 
both wild, as whurts, strawberries, pears, and plums, though 
the meaner sort come short, the gentlemen step not far be¬ 
hind those of other parts. Carew. 
WHY, adv. [hpi, pophpi, Saxon.] For what reason ? 
Interrogatively.—They both deal justly with you; why? not 
from any regard they have for justice, but because their for¬ 
tune depends on their credit. Swift. —For which reason. 
Relatively.—In every sin, men must not consider the unlaw¬ 
fulness thereof only, but the reason why it should be unlaw¬ 
ful. Perkins. —For what reason. Relatively. 
I was dispatch’d for their defence and guard; 
And listen why, for I will tell you now. Milton. 
You have not been a-bed then ? 
Why, no; the day had broke before we parted. Shakspeare. 
WHY, s. [yuie, Danish.] A young heifer; and a why- 
calf is a cow-calf. Used in the north of England. Grose. 
WHYE, a town of Hindostan, province of Bejapore, now 
belonging to the British. It is situated near to the source of 
the river Krishna, and is one of the places of Hindoo pilgri¬ 
mage. Lat. 18. N. long. 74. 5. E. 
W I A 
WHY-EA-TEA, a bay on the east coast of Owhybee. 
Lat. 19. 44. N. long. 204. 54. E. 
WHYKIN, a hamlet of England, in Leicestershire, near 
Hinckley. 
WHYMEA BAY, a bay on the north coast of the island 
of Woahoo. At this port Mr. Hergest, commander, Mr. 
Gooch, astronomer, and a seaman of the Daedalus, going out 
with stores for captain Vancouver, were seized by some of the 
inhabitants, and killed, in 1792. Lat. 21. 38. N. long. 
202. 51. E. 
WHY'NOT, adv. A cant word for violent or peremp¬ 
tory procedure. 
Capoch’d your rabbins of the synod, 
And snap’d their canons with a whynot. Hudibras. 
WHYMEA ROAD, a road on the south-west coast of the 
island of Attowai. Captain Vancouver says this bay is much 
confined in respect to safe anchorage; for although the Dis¬ 
covery’s cables had not been injured by a foul bottom; yet 
the Chatham, in March, 1792, when anchored in 30 fathoms 
water, at only a convenient distance to the north-west of the 
Discovery, on a bottom of soft mud, had both her cables 
much fretted and damaged by the rocks at the bottom; and 
not far to the eastward of our easternmost anchor was found 
also a patch of rocky bottom, in some places not deeper than 
four fathoms, though surrounded by a depth of from 30 to 
40 fathoms. 
WHYTATAKEE, an island in the South Pacific Ocean, 
discovered by Captain Blyth, in the Bounty. The inhabit¬ 
ants of both sexes wear no clothing, but a girdle of stained 
leaves round the middle, and the men an ornament of pearl 
oyster-shell, exactly resembling an officer’s gorget. The 
centre is black, and the transparent part of the shell is left as 
an edge or border to it, which produces a very fine effect. 
It is hung round the neck by a band of human hair, or of 
the fibres of the cocoa-nut shell, with a rose neatly worked at 
each corner of the gorget. Their spears are nine feet long, 
and very neatly carved in alto relievo. Lat. 18. 52. S. long. 
159. 41. W. 
WHYTT (Robert), F. R. S., a distinguished physician, 
was born at Edinburgh in 1714, educated at St. Andrew’s, 
and studied physic first at Edinburgh, and afterwards at 
London, Paris, and Leyden. He settled in his profession at 
Edinburgh, where he became a fellow, then president of the 
college of physicians, and in 1746 chairman of the institu¬ 
tions of medicine in the university. As a medical practitioner 
and teacher, and also as a writer, he acquired celebrity. The 
first of his publications was an “ Essay on the Vital and 
other Involuntary Motions of Animals," 1751, in which he 
advances a theory different from that of Stahl, as he attributes 
these motions not to the soul, acting to a foreseen end, but 
to the power of stimulus. In 1755 he published “ Physiolo¬ 
gical Essays, containing an Inquiry into the Causes which 
promote the Circulation of the Fluids in the very small Vessels 
of Animals; with Observations on the Sensibility and Irrita¬ 
bility of the Parts of Man and other Animals.” Here he 
supposes that the action of the heart is not sufficient to propel 
the blood through the minutest vessels, but that it is assisted 
by an oscillatory motion of the vessels themselves. Of this 
work, an enlarged edition appeared in 1761. His other works 
are, “ An Essay on the Virtues of Lime-water in the Cure of 
the Stone,” 1752; “ Observations on the Nature, Cause, and 
Cure of those Disorders which are commonly called Nervous, 
Hypochondriac, and Hysteric,” 1764; and some papers in 
the Edinburgh “ Essays and Observations, Physical and 
Literary.” A posthumous work appeared, entitied “ Ob¬ 
servations on the Dropsy of the Brain.” Having long 
laboured under a complication of chronic complaints, he 
died in 1766. His son published an edition of all his works 
in 1768, 4to. under the inspection of sir John Pringle. 
Haller Bib. Anat. Gen. Blog. 
WI, [Sax.] Holy. Thus Wimund, holy peace; Wibert, 
eminent for sanctity; Alwi, altogether holy, as-IIierocles, 
Hieronymus, Hosius, &c. Gibson's Camden. 
WIA, one of the small western islands of Scotland, a little 
to 
